


Thesmothete

by faridsgwi



Series: Auspex [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 19th century Jon, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Canon-Typical The Beholding Content (The Magnus Archives), Child Abuse, Gen, Period Typical Attitudes, Pre-Canon, Short One Shot, The Magnus Institute (The Magnus Archives), Workhouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26897545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faridsgwi/pseuds/faridsgwi
Summary: Jonah Magnus decided to move his Institute to London in 1841, and establish an Archive.Not a paper and ink archive. The best way to feed terror to his patron, he realised, would be to build a flesh and blood record to truly bear witness, a beholder.Now it was merely a matter of finding a child suitable for such a purpose.
Relationships: Jonah Magnus & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Auspex [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974427
Comments: 33
Kudos: 177





	Thesmothete

**Author's Note:**

> I am very busy... .very small... and i have no money, so you can imagine the stress that I am under
> 
> This is to say that this is a concept I am very interested in, but am also unlikely to finish or expand. I just wanted to put this first, ominous fragment of it out into the world.
> 
> CWs in the end notes.

It was not the first time that Jonah had been inside a workhouse, of course. It was just that all those he had toured before had been incomplete and empty at the time. The reality of their inhabitants - the noise, the smell, the misery - made visiting a completed one rather a different experience than taking part in one's construction. It was _fascinating_. Rank, intoxicating fear seemed to leak from every pore, from the very stonework. All kinds of fear, not just one: he could feel the presence of the Web, the Creeping Rot, the Stranger, the Slaughter, the Buried, all thick and oppressive; and, of course, the constant, immense pressure of Beholding. He and Robert had made sure of that in the design.

The governor didn't speak to him, and Jonah made no friendly overtures in return. He simply stood with his top hat in his hand beside the door of the man's office and waited. A gentleman wandering into such a place instantly caused a certain level of discomfort, and he plucked delicately at that sense of squirming unease, pleased as a fox in a henhouse. His specific request had revealed nothing in particular of his purposes; but that mystery, at least, was something the governor had no interest in revealing. If Smirke's associate said he had need of a lad to apprentice - and if for some arcane reason he chose to find such a creature in a poorhouse rather than a boarding school - then he could have one and be gone, the sooner the better.

Jonah eyed them coolly as they shuffled into the office and assembled in front of him, the boys that had been found to his description. Younger than thirteen, he'd said, and the cleverest the workhouse staff could find. _I do not wish to be misunderstood_ , he had gone on with open derision, holding up an imperious hand. _Not the most respectful, nor the most diligent, nor the cleanest. The most intelligent._

They were not an impressive bunch. Each had their hair roughly shorn very short, dressed in an ill-fitting blue uniform and still dirty from whatever labour they had been occupied with a moment before, their heads held down and their natural, childish inquisitiveness suppressed by wariness of the overseer that stood behind them. One or two shifted from foot to foot or nervously clutched his hands tight before him; most, however, were still, accepting that they would be forced into whatever fate the state chose for them.

After a silent moment long enough to truly spark that dread he enjoyed, Jonah stepped forward, turning his critical eye briefly to the overseer before returning it again to the children.

"This is all of them?"

"It is, Mister Magnus. Forgive the muck on them, but they've come straight from the workshops."

It was almost six in the afternoon, by Jonah's timepiece, nearing the end of these boys' long working day, and a number of them stood unsteadily from exhaustion. No matter. He didn't need them to speak, not really; what he was searching for could be discerned without words.

He flicked his hand dismissively toward the governor and the overseer. By all rights the two guardians probably should have stayed, but they (like most everyone since he had been brought into the power of the Eye) found it easier to take the cues he gave them without question, and filed out, leaving him alone to do as he pleased.

One by one, he turned the gaze of the Ceaseless Watcher toward each boy and witnessed them shudder beneath it in turn. One was marked by Corruption, frail and feverish and never quite as ill as he made those around him; one was a Hunter, a bully obsessed with the power of stalking and cornering some unfortunate younger child; the others, for the most part, were boring, their terrors mundane and simply no use for Jonah's purposes.

Almost the last in the row, though, he was different. Jonah suppressed his glee at the burning, desperate thirst for knowledge that saturated the air all around the boy. He was marked by the Mother of Puppets, quite deeply scarred, but everything about him turned from that fear toward Beholding. He stiffened as Jonah paused in front of him, eyes skittering anxiously across the floor at first - but unlike the others, his curiosity overcame his apprehension. The boy glanced up, met Jonah's eyes, and froze there. Jonah could feel half-formed thoughts flitting rapidly over the surface of his mind, all quickly subsumed by overwhelming awareness of being Seen.

As though ignorant to his whirling confusion, Jonah raised one gloved hand to the boy's chin and gently turned his face to one side and then the other to examine him. He was dark-haired and ashen-skinned, a very scrawny creature, smaller than normal for even paupers his age, but with lines around his eyes that made him seem older. Jonah dug in his memory for the vague shape of the circumstances that had brought him here: a father accidentally killed, a mother taken by the typhoid, a few years of inadequate care by an elderly grandmother who had been defeated by the bitter labour of trying to provide for him, her explaining as best she could to him that she was being forced to enter them both into the poorhouse. She was still alive, actually, though the boy had been convinced from the moment they were separated both that he would never see her again and that it was _his fault_. Then... a woodcut pamphlet found on the floor of the dormitories, a young man snatching it out of his hands, the Spider, a blood-spatter.

Jonah released the small pointed chin in his hand, but the boy remained staring blankly up, stricken by the sensation of a foreign presence rifling through his brain.

"Name, boy?"

Being directly addressed snapped him out of it and send him blinking back into the real world. The boy ducked his head again, struggling for a few seconds to find his voice.

"Sims, sir," he managed eventually, unsure.

"Hold up your hands, Sims."

He had spoken on the unconscious advice of his patron, not really knowing why he asked. The little hands were raw red, cut in places from picking oakum and thoroughly scrubbed to avoid the possibility of a gentleman encountering any tar; the right also, bizarrely enough, bore the telltale calluses of a writer. This was a child allotted scarce time enough to rest, none to play, and yet he wrote?

There was a sharp spike in the fear radiating from the boy, at... ah, yes, of course. Below that on the palm were several raised welts from a birch cane, which the boy thought he was looking at and thinking him disobedient.

"Are you punished often?"

The boy hesitated, wetting his lips.

"I try to be good, sir," he whispered.

"Of course," Jonah agreed smoothly. "But when are you in need of correction?"

There was just a hint of compulsion in his voice, and so this the boy answered instantly.

"The teachers say I'm impertinent. I ask too many questions."

Jonah had to fight to keep a victorious smile off his face. He half-turned to leave, snapping his fingers for the boy to follow, and ignoring the way it made him jump and the hesitation in his step.

The governor looked at him with something approaching relief - the overseer, clearly more familiar with the child in question, raised his eyebrows judgementally.

"This one?"

"Correct."

"Very well," said the governor, his mind already on other issues. "I should have the documents in my office. You may return the others, Daniels."

" 'Course, sir."

The boy had an expression of shock on his face, peerly numbly at the backs of his peers as they disappeared around the snaking corners Smirke was so notorious for designing and left him alone with this bewildering, well-dressed stranger. He chanced another peek at Jonah; and found again, inhaling sharply, that Jonah was scrutinising him in return.

"Do you own a cap, boy?"

He shook his head mutely. Jonah's lips pressed in annoyance.

"Hm. I suppose a new wardrobe will be in order anyway. You'll just have to survive without one for a few days."

The certificate was brought out to him, the governor still doing his best to look away from what might be happening and have his part in it done as fast as possible. Jonah dutifully recorded his name, and the institute he had established that bore it too, and made his sign - and then handed the pen over to the boy, who held it shakingly.

He raised an eyebrow, as though suspect of his abilities, despite knowing full well that it was trepidation and not ignorance that stayed the child's hand.

"I expect that you are literate?"

"Of course he is," snapped the governor, though Jonah could sense a sliver of doubt in his head. Not all the children who entered this system emerged lettered. "Make your mark, Sims."

The boy did as bidden, writing _Jonathan Sims_ in what was more a chicken-scrawl than a copperplate. Oh, well, nevermind. He would have time to drill the proper handwriting. Jonah would have him sign a more complete contract of employment at the Institute, but even already he could feel the threads of fate twisting around the boy, beginning to bind him permanently to Beholding.

As the governor went to file his copy of the contract document away securely, Jonah fixed his attention back on his new, unaware little disciple.

"Do you like to read, _Jonathan?"_

"V-Very much so, sir," stammered the boy, Jonathan, compelled to answer honestly but afraid his answer might be incorrect, displeasing.

"Good." said Jonah contentedly. No need to intimidate Jonathan any more; the last thing he needed was the boy fainting dead away right here. Besides, he had no wish to tempt the Slaughter. If he ever was to punish Jonathan, it would be the knowledge that it was coming, the understanding that he had angered, that would be the cause of the fear, not the pain itself. "You'll be doing a lot of reading for me."

And despite the nerves suffusing his body, young Jonathan was interested in that, excited by the concept of an apprenticeship of study. He tried a shy smile, shaky and unfamiliar.

Jonah allowed himself a small smirk back.

His plan to build an Archive had been set in motion.

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings:  
> \- General Victorian terrible attitudes towards people in workhouses, lots of classism  
> \- Children subject to hard labour and corporal punishment  
> \- Jonah Magnus being incredibly creepy - in no way sexually, just delighting in terrifying children
> 
> (A thesmothete was a junior archon in Ancient Athens.)


End file.
